In the 1980s, the city of Melbourne was a magnet for young lesbian women making their way from sleepy outback towns and quiet suburbs to the big smoke. Inner city Melbourne was the place to find lovers and friends, and it was a thriving community of musical, artistic, and curious women. At venues like Club 397 on Swanston St; the Burnley Tavern in Richmond; St Kilda Town Hall; the San Remo Ballroom, Daylesford Town Hall and Fitzroy Town Hall, women listened to female acapella groups, danced to the latest disco and dressed up for the gayest of gay balls. The Sydney Opera house even hosted a thousand lesbians who raised $500,000 to buy a permanent community space while Perth welcomed hundreds of lesbians for an annual camping event.
It all feels like a lost Golden Age now—because in 2025, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal declared women-only events illegal, overturning an earlier exemption request from the Lesbian Action Group to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
The finding against the Lesbian Action Group’s appeal is proof of how successfully the LGBTQi+ behemoth has destroyed the rights of all women but in particular lesbians who have been denied their freedom of association to meet and celebrate with their own community. So how has this happened?
By including ‘gender identity’ in the legislation Australia has created the legal fiction that a man can simply self-declare himself to possess the gender identity of a ‘woman’ and be recognised as such.
The changes to the Australian SDA opened the door self-ID laws which allow men to purchase an amended birth certificate and change the sex markers on their passport, driver’s licence and legal documents. This gives them all the rights and protection of women and allows them access to women’s sports, prisons and spaces.
Following amendments to the SDA, Australian lesbians experienced a persistent pattern of complaints and threats of legal action whenever and wherever they held women-only events. Trans rights activists, led by a few highly motivated individuals demanded inclusion. And over time the risks and costs of legal action forced the lesbian community back into the closet. A once-flourishing community of the 1980s had disappeared by the early 2000s.
Homosexuality is framed as a ‘genital fetish’ in gender ideology and lesbians denounced for practising ‘sexual apartheid’ if they refuse to have sex with men. Genderists deny same-sex attraction and use social exclusion and shame to silence anyone who protests.
Gender identity ideology is not a grassroots, bottom-up movement but a state-sponsored movement funded largely by the deep pockets of the trans lobby and policed through the law.
The women at LAG are considering whether they will lodge another appeal. Please visit their website and send them a message of support.
Note of thanks:
The initial request to the AHRC and the appeal to the AAT were made possible by the Barrister Leigh Howard, the solicitor Anna Kerr and the researcher Megan Blake providing their services pro bono.
[Ed: Please note that lesbian battles on this front predated the 2013 amendments to the SDA which was preceded by decades by legislation and case law recognising change of sex on birth certificates and identity documents and that conservative governments have been instrumental in supporting and implementing these legislative and policy changes. Also legal advisers were not involved in the original request, only the subsequent appeal.]
Source: (1) Homophobia 2.0 – by Jenny Nabben – The Glinner Update